Wednesday, December 31, 2003

Last week I went down to Florida and stayed with the Mitzman. He had told me that we would go to a party when I was there. So he picked me up at the airport and then told me that it was a work party we were going to and I was his date. What the hell is that? Yeah, he totally suckered me into being his date for his work's Christmas party. One of the guys at the party started making fun of Dave for bringing a guy. I made sure that he knew I had no idea. Damn the Mitz and his gayness.

Talked to Jennie. Glen and the crew are gonna be at her house tonight so I might go. I am so indecisive. Finished up what I wanted to work on here at work and I don't want to start another project now so I will just wait until next week. I am pretty tired. I guess I will go home and eat some lunch. Maybe I will hit up the skatepark for a little while this afternoon. Not sure though because I am really tired from last night.

Last night was pretty sweet. Holly and Sarah showed up in Buffalo so Tim and I went to Pano's with them. Sarah misses Wegman's so we spent some time there then went to Moe's party at the Blades house. Tim went to the Pink though because he wasn't "cool" enough for the party.

The party wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. After the party Holly wanted to hit up the Pink so we went down there. I played some pool with Kris and we got our asses kicked by some really sexy chick and her partner, but the really sexy chick totally carried the game.

Finally made it home about 3:15 and bed about 3:30. I got up at 8:15 this morning and made it to work at 9. Good thing today is only a half day so I am gonna be leaving at noon.

Jennie is having a party she neglected to tell me about so I had already told the other Sweet Dudes that I was gonna be at Parz's. I will at least go to dinner with those guys, but I might head over to Jennie's after dinner. I really wanna see some of those Rochester folk. It depends on who is gonna be there though. I don't wanna go if it is gonna be lame Nobody Cares groupies, but if Glen is showing up I might go.

Tuesday, December 30, 2003

So I amreally not getting much done here at work today. Jon came by and talked for a while. I never did get that cup of tea because my boss was on the phone and then left for a meeting. I had to break into my own stash of Tazo Envy Green Tea. Really pleasant stuff, but I was looking forward to trying some of Shawn's new stuff.

Been playing my desktop putting green game a lot today. I love it.

Time to finish up these incidents and get on with porting my latest invention to two other products. Shhh...can't talk about what it is yet since we haven't released it or even announced it to any customers. We don't want our competitors catching wind. That's right... I invented something...

Run to the Hilly. Piss on the rugger field! Run to the Hilly. Piss on the rugger field.

So I have made it to the afternoon. I have had several good convos with Jason today. Politics as usual. Here are a few conclusions we have come to:

The dollar will continue to be deflated until in 2005 the Amero (like the Euro, but for the Americas) is introduced. This is a plan which has been outlined by the World Bank and INF in 2000 and you are starting to see the dollar drop now!

The world elite (Bush family, their cronies, Rothchild's, Bin Laden's, etc...) are attempting complete financial domination. To do this the Amero and Euro will eventually be merged into one common currency which they run.

On of the other major parts of financial domination is oil (and all natural resource) domination. This is why the US is in the Middle East. We will continue to take over until all resources belong to the US (which really belongs to the world elite).

Ok, you probably think I am some kind of complete nut job. I know it sounds completely crazy. If you have questions about this or disagree with me I am happy to discuss it. Let me know.

Other than the demise of the US things are going well today and I am going to go make a cup to tea. My boss got some kinds of green tea in, so I am going to try one of those if he is around right now.

Current music: Ted Leo and the Pharmacists - Tell Balgeary, Balgury is Dead

I went to the new skatepark yesterday on Hertel. It is a pretty cool place. Really big with nice ramps, a stage, and a climbing wall. Bowling was rockin last night. Everybody was there. It was good to see everybody again. Ringer says there has been some shows at the new skatepark. Where the hell have I been? I think I am gonna do some skating there tonight.

Stupid people here at work decided to give me a boatload of new incidents, but most of them are not even really incidents. Now I have to write up explanations why they are not. Just a pain in the ass. Frusterating.

Girls give mixed signals. I give up. I'll just go to NZ where the girls don't play the games.

Monday, December 29, 2003

Back at work today and I have absolutely no drive to do work. Not really many people here today. Kinda nice and quiet. I do have some work to do so I will do it, but then after that I think I will just work on some pet projects I have.

I got a miniature desktop putting green at the Chinese auction we had at Aunt Fran's house. I have that sitting on my desk now and everyone keeps playing with it.

Good thing we had Chinese Monday today because I woulda been outta luck. I had no money and no lunch. I guess I could have gone to the bank, but nobody likes doing that.

I think I am going to go to the new skatepark on Hertel tonight after work and see what that is all about. I need to get my skate on. I am definitely bowling tonight as well.

Yesterday I sent my last college loan check. Yeah, that's right... I am completely done paying for school and I paid for it all by myself. Now the only money I owe to anybody is for my car and my car is currently worth more than the outstanding loan. Yeah boy...I'm in the black - sorta.

Time to get back to work I guess. I think I will be lazy a little longer and go make a cup of tea.

Sunday, December 28, 2003

Current music: Ted Leo and the Pharmacists - Dirty Old Town

Hit up my aunt's house on Christmas Eve. She lives in Brandon, near Tampa. We had dinner there and opened some gifts then went home to my grandparents' in Brandenton. Their neighbor's house is painted orange with yellow trim. Don't get me wrong, orange is my favorite color, but damn...it looked like a taco stand.

Christmas day my brother and I went golfing with my dad and his brother, my Uncle Danny. My uncle and my brother are certainly the black sheep of the family and it is really frusterating trying to talk to either of them, but it was fun to golf anyways.

We had a big Christmas dinner at night with gnocchis, cutlets, all the good Italian cookies. I loved it.

In the morning on the 26th we got up early and drove the two and half hours to my mom's parents in Lady Lake...just north of Leesburg. I don't really like going there because it is so boring. THey live in a retirement community called The Villages. Everybody drives golf carts and everyone is super old. We went down to the pool and laid in the sun for a while then went home and had a big dinner. Just pretty much sat around the rest of the night and went in the hot tub. The Bucci's came over. They are friends of my dad's parents and live in the Villages as well.

The next morning I went golfing again with my brother and my dad. I played so much better. I guess that is what happens...not golf for ages then twice in a week and the second time is better. Who'd a thunk?

Today we got up early again and drove to Orlando. Now I am just sitting in the airport and I have about an hour before my flight. Bored...

Thursday, December 25, 2003

At my grandparents house right now in Bradenton, FL...near Tampa. The weather is beautiful so what the hell am I doing sitting in here on the computer? Had a great time in the Keys. Kayaked, snorkeled, etc... Went golfing this morning. That's right...it is Christmas and I went golfing...and I loved it. I did crappy. Not sure if that is because I haven't played since the summer or the course was really hard. I have more to post, but I will post later. Big up yourself. There is definitely some one I miss...

Wednesday, December 24, 2003

Current music: Far - Water & Solutions

Well, the past few days I spent in the Florida Keys. Pretty sweet place. Went out to Key West one day. It is much busier there than I thought it would be. Today we are driving up to Brandon to see my aunt then over to Bradenton to stay with my grandparents. It is a pretty long drive and we are driving right now.

We stopped by the Everglades National Park shortly. Saw some alligators and birds then r-u-n-n-o-f-t because we need to get to Aunt Fran's. The sun is shining now and I can't really see my screen very well so I am gonna stop typing now and just take a nap or something. Seems like all I have done is sleep this week. I did go snorkeling yesterday though they wouldn't let me dive because I don't have my dive cert with me. Pretty gay if you ask me.

Friday, December 19, 2003

Last night I went out to dinner to Taste Good with Holly and Tim. Went back to Tim's house and hung out for a little then went to bed. We got up at 5 am for Tim to take me to the airport. I txt'd Dave and woke him up. Got into West Palm Beach about 2 pm after playing many games of TuxRacer.

The Mitz picked me up at the airport and he had to go back to work. We went back there and I chilled with Tall Todd. Now we are back at Dave's but we have to go now because he has a work party at Red Lobster and it is unlimited food and booze. (sarcasm)Good thing about the booze. What would I do without it? If I had to come all the way to Florida and not have any booze I would...I don't even know.(/sarcasm)

Time to hit up the party, but I need coffee! We are gonna get over to Barnes & Noble on the way. Boyashaka!

Thursday, December 18, 2003

Last night was pretty sweet. Holly called me up to eat at Natalie's with her and Tim. I love that place and I wish it could be behind my house wherever I live. I would walk over there all the time.

After dinner I called all over to find movie theatres that had tickets to LOTR - Return of the King. Finally I found some at the closest theatre to my house. You would think I would call there first but nope. Did it up with Jeff and Beth. It was amazing, but I won't say anything more so I don't ruin it for people. I ruin the OC for people, but that is way different.

Work has been pretty slow lately. THere is not a whole lot to do and since I am leaving for vacation my boss doesn't want to give me anything new to start. I am just twiddling my thumbs now for the next hour.

Found out our work holiday party is the 17th of January...way after the holidays are over. Wash me in your blood!!! Sorry...singing on the keyboard.

I have so much to do tonight before leaving for Florida. I have to pack. Ship the Neuros back Digital Innovations. Go see the new skatepark on Hertel Ave. Eat dinner with Tim. Pay my bills. Mail my laptop rebate. I hate having things to do. I have enough of those at work that I like the rest of my life to just be fun. I guess it is all ok though because I will make up for it when I go diving in a few days.

I seriously hope they let me dive. I might totally flip out and kill someone like a ninja if they don't let me. I took the certification classes, but never obtained the actual license certificate for whatever reason. Things were all screwed up because I didn't have a passport photo to give PADI at the time. I think they will let me though as soon as I demonstrate I know a little bit. That is what Laust did in Tutukaka when we went to Poor Knights Islands.

This post is getting really long. I guess since I have so much free time I can just keep going here. I probably won't be posting much while I am in Florida unless I have an internet connection at the place we are staying. I don't think I will though. I won't make my parents pay extra for it. They are already doing enough...

Ha. It is hilarious that I will see Mitzman tomorrow. Haven't seen that dude since graduation. Uh oh...I am gonna be at a Jew's house during Hannukah. Something new I guess. Should be pretty fun.

I hope I have all the stuff I need on my laptop. I have been transferring all my stuff over to it slowly so I can start using it as my main machine and abandon my desktop. I have been slowly migrating, but since I am going tomorrow I had to finish up the migration. I think I have everything I want for the next few weeks. I will stick a few da VD's in my case too and some VCD's and crap. Stacia and I will have a good old time.

I wonder how she is getting along with her new camera. I am sure she has figured out how to use it effectively by now. It is so easy, especially with her iBook.

Ok, well. I am gonna go write some emails and then take off. Gonna leave work so early today. I have nothing else to do here so why am I staying?

Wednesday, December 17, 2003

Last night was a late night for me. Holly and I went out for some dessert. Alethea's makes some amazing stuff. Went back to her apartment and watched The Two Towers.

I hope I can get tickets to see Return of the King tonight. Definitely excited to see it. Maybe Beth, Brickey, and the rest of the crew are going. I should ring em.

I had an away message yesterday that said something about "Boyashaka!" and something else. I was so happy to get home and see that another American watches Ali G and appreciates him and knew the reference. To cont that theme:

Ey! I am for real wrecked and just dig to ead staines and go to me Julie coz i was up all night wiv a wicked bitch.

Tuesday, December 16, 2003

Never did make it to bowling last night. Nobody was going but the Blades crew and Dave and I didn't wanna bet with them this week. I guess I coulda bowled with Marie, Tammy, and Donnie, but I just stayed home and went to bed early.

So many incidents lately to resolve at work. I am almost through all of them.

I am confused and don't have any ideas on what to do...maybe I should just ask.

Monday, December 15, 2003

Last night I was totally not tired. Probably because I was excited playing with my new mp3 player. I didn't go to bed until after 1 and that messed me up because then I couldn't get up at my normal time this morning. Then on my way to work there was a big accident and it took me forever to get through there. Finally made it to work an hour later than usual. Eh...guess I'll be staying late tonight.

This weekend was good. I think I am seeing a trend here. Weekends are good, weekdays suck. Friday night I went out with a really sweet girl who I definitely think is one of the best people I have met in Buffalo. I wonder when I will get to see her again.

Saturday I didn't do much during the day. Just worked on getting my laptop set up. Made some serious progress. Tim and I hit the mall in the evening searching for a pink shirt. He wanted a really bright pink one. We searched that mall from top to bottom and the only one we found was being worn by the cashier at Express. We asked if they had more and he said probably not since it is a "spring color". Stupid marketing people trying to dictate when you can and cannot where pink. Finally we found a sorta light pink shirt at Wet Seal. Damn, that is a pretty bad store, but he got it. Went over to Lihn's place and then to 3rd Room. That is one of the lamest bars I have been to in ages. So we only stayed there about 15-20 minutes then went to the Pink. Shot some stick with Leah for a few hours and inhaled my share of smoke for the next 16.7 years. Tim got pretty wasted and rowdy. It was cool hanging out with Lihn, her sis, and Buttercup. I think I have met Buttercup before, but never formally. Neat chick with fun clothes.

Sunday morning there was snow on the ground and it was coming down in full effect. I got my stuff together and headed to Rochester. My family was exchanging presents then instead of bringing them all to Florida and them bringing them back. Just seemed like too much of a hassle. I got some cool stuffs. MP3 player, Ansel Adams print, fleece blanket, Death Cab's latest album (hint hint...that is why I am listening to it right now) and a few other small things.

The MP3 player I got was the wrong one. I told my mom which one I wanted and I told her wrong. Totally my fault. I am trying to contact the company to see if I can return this one for the other. Either way I am damn happy with it though.

Chinese Monday and I am ready. Like I said earlier, my stomach is in knots. I am just writing documentation today for some software I have been writing over the past two months or so. Docs are boring, but necessary I guess.

Friday, December 12, 2003

I have installed Libranet 2.8.1 on my new Dell Inspiron 1100 laptop and here are the issues I am still having. I downloaded and compiled 2.6.0-test11 and am running it. Nice because it has the b44 driver for the Broadcom ethernet chip. ALSA works, but I can't get multiple audio streams at the same time. My mouse touchpad was working fine until I decided to upgrade to Debian Unstable. It reinstalled Grub and screwed up my bootloader. I had to go in and modify the XF86config-4 file to use the correct mouse driver. It is working better now, but now I can't use it for tap-to-click. There is a website about using the Synaptic Driver which should be installed in this 2.6 kernel. I can't get it working yet and it was after midnight last night so I finally gave up. I will work on it again when I get home.

Stuff I have yet to get working and haven't really tried is ACPI. Supposedly it half works on the latest BIOS (which I have). I also want to get a USB mouse working along with the mouse touchpad. My wireless card I haven't even plugged in yet. I need to take it someplace that I can do some testing since I don't have an access point. I will probably go over to Kris and Tim's.

For the most part things have gone smooth. My USB CF reader that didn't work with the 2.4 kernel works with 2.6 so that is pretty sweet. Supposedly it is difficult to set up the display, but I didn't have much problem. The ALSA stuff has so far been the most difficult. I have never really had it working correctly on any machine. Now I have it installed and working, but I just need to get it to handle multiple streams. Almost there.

Thursday, December 11, 2003

Called in sick to work yesterday. My wickedly dry throat finally manifested into a sorta flu-like thing. I am doing so much better today even though I am still not 100%. My sister drove up from Rochester to bring me soup and hang out.

Also, my laptop came yesterday. I spent much of the day trying to get it set up, <geek>but I think I screwed up ALSA so I am gonna start over and use a 2.6 kernel</geek>.

I am back at work now and once again posting to my blog even though we don't have full internet access. I have my ways around that... Now I am sitting here listening to Jimmy Eat World's worst album by far and loving it. I haven't listened to this album in about a year. Reminds me of NZ.

My crushes go no where. NZ, SF, TS...reasons that I can't have the girls I like...

Tuesday, December 09, 2003

So I came into work this morning and fired up my PC. I had an email from one of the executives. The email stated that the new "Web Security Software" would be fully enabled today. As far as I could tell everything was still working just fine. That was at about 7:45. At 8:25 the guy in the cube next to me said he could not get to google.com. Now the blocking has started. I tried going to Google and was presented with a page stating it is not in the "allow" list. However, after I restarted my browser I was able to get to it again. I have not tried any other sites. It gives me a generally unclean feeling when the "this site is blocked" page comes up.

Right now I have logged into my firewall machine back in my apartment through SSH and started up links (like lynx but with tables) and I am going to try to post this from there. I have tried this before and was unsuccessful, so we'll see how it goes.

In other news, yesterday was Mark Brickey's birthday. Beth gave me a text and told me they were going up to the Seneca casino in Niagara Falls for some dinner at the buffet and asked me to go. So naturally when there is food involved I went. Damn, that place has some food. There was an unreasonable amount of food there. It was unreasonably too much. I ate 2 full plates of dinner then some pie, ice cream, and bread pudding. The bread pudding was gross though. I am never gonna eat that crap again. Now my insides are all messed up. It was way too much meat. I don't eat much meat normally and that was pretty much all I ate there.

Anyways, I love hanging out with that crew. I need to hang with them more. I always say that and then I don't. I need to start calling them up.

Monday, December 08, 2003

Back to work once again... At least I get to play in C++ again. Anyway I went to the Bills game yesterday and they won! It was so damn cold, but it was cool hanging out with Dave and seeing some foosball.

I thought the internet was gonna get blocked here at work, but if you can't tell, I am still blogging! I haven't had any problems yet with sites being blocked except that I had to start routing my web traffic (port 80) through the proxy.

Nuff geek talks. Mark Brickey's birthday is today and a bunch of us are taking him out to the casino in Niagara Falls (USA side). It'll be pretty sweet I am sure. I guess that means bowling is off for tonight, but that is ok. Bowling isn't the same since Ballz Bowling ended.

I wish Ryan and I had gone to Stowe this weekend instead of a few weeks ago. They got 22-28"! Oh well, it was good to hit the slopes when we did. Hopefully KB will open up soon. We don't have poop for snow though.

Back to work I guess. I am out of stuff to write for now. Not sure if I will still be able to blog from work in the future, but I will try... I have a phobia that someone's always near.

Saturday, December 06, 2003

Yesterday I went out to Two Four Five in Lockport to see some snowboard jackets and found one I liked so I went back today and bought it and got free gloves with it! Weee!

Tonight I went downtown with Tim, Holly, and some of other people I didn't know to see the fireworks and tree lighting but missed it so we went to some Greek restuarant instead. It was funny seeing kid fall on ice skates though. The Tetris tourney was mean as.

Wednesday, December 03, 2003

Well, finally got the laptop I have been wating to get. I got a Dell Inspiron 1100. Should be pretty sweet with Linux on there. 2.3 GHz Celeron, 256MB RAM, 20GB HD, 14.1" display... Got a pretty sweet price on it as well.

In other news, they are taking away the internet at work. EVERYTHING is blocked by default and there is a whitelist (aka. a list of sites that you can get to). I don't think the guy that is implementing this (the VP of Operations) has any clue about Engineering. This is going to be a huge hinderance more than anything else. It has already been a pain in the ass today and it went into effect (sorta) at 3 pm. Well, when it is full on Friday we will see what happens. As long as I can SSH to my machine at home I am happy. Then I can run links (tabled version of lynx) and still get the news and crap like that.

Man, my life has been boring these last few days...too much tv, not enough life.

Monday, December 01, 2003

Lori finally called and came over. We went down to Spot and had a nice cup of coffee then to Wegman's to get some sushi. It was decent for prepackaged stuff. We went back to my house and watched O Brother Where Art Thou? I love that movie.

Sunday was a nice day. I got up and did some work around the house, just cleaning and whatever then went to Barnes & Noble for a few hours. Tim called me and reminded me that Kris's fund raising spaghetti dinner was that evening so I met Tim at his place and we went over. Joe met us there too. It was pretty good, but I ate too many desserts. At night I just watched some TV and went to sleep early.

This morning I think I slept too long because even after 9 hours of sleep I was too tired. I finally dragged myself out of bed and made it to work. Of course right on our street (where I work that is) it was snowing. No place else, but it was a damn blizzard of soggy snow and I was drenched by the time I made it the 100 feet from my car to the door.

During lunch I went out and got a money order for my criminal record check and mailed my fingerprints and the money order to Albany for the background check. Now I just need to get the blood work done and I am nearly done with my visa stuff. Woohoo!

Finished up the DHCP stuff I was doing here at work and moved on to finding a new incident to work on... Still haven't decided whether or not I should purchase that laptop. I keep going back and forth in my head.